Exhibits archive

Cal Poly BattleBot

Tight schedule, tiny budget, one big scary bot

When former aerospace engineer Christian Carlberg had an opportunity to compete in the resurrected BattleBots, he required little incentive. With a limited budget and little time to build a competitive robot, as well as a tight weight restriction of 120 pounds, the team turned to Digital Prototyping technology.

Digital Prototyping

Digital Prototyping helped ensure that the design was right the first time—the main parts had to be cut only once, saving much-needed funds. The rest of the parts were donated, thanks to investor interest secured by the digital prototypes showing exactly what the team intended to build.

Simulated performance

Analysis created with Algor Simulation shows the displacement magnitude on the robot chassis as the spinning weapon strikes another object. The greatest deformation occurs at the point of impact, and the stresses of that strike are distributed throughout the chassis.

The result

Coming in at 119 pounds, including an intimidating 20-pound spinning steel bar, the Cal Poly design was the first BattleBot in the program’s history to knock an opponent out of the arena.